Conference on the Gender Dimensions of Weather and Climate Services

The Conference will raise awareness and showcase good practices and concrete actions to empower women – as well as men – to produce, acquire and use such services to make more informed decisions in the weather and climate-sensitive areas of food security, disaster risk reduction, water resources management and public health. Empowerment of women is important both to improve the effectiveness of weather and climate services and to build climate resilience. UNESCO is co-leading the thematic sessions on:- Disaster Risk Reduction, - Water and Women and Careers in Weather, and- Water and Climate.Director-General Irina Bokova will speak in two high-level panels. The conference is jointly organized by UNESCO, FAO, IUCN, UN-ISDR, UN-Women, WHO and the World Bank under the overall coordination of WMO.

The outcomes of this international conference will feed in to both the Global Framework for Climate Services (to which UNESCO is a partner) and to high-level processes taking place in 2015, including the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, the Commission on the Status of Women 59/Beijing+20, the 2015 United Nations Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 21) and the UN General Assembly deliberations on the Sustainable Development Goals.

It will bring strong and specific messages about the role of women in addressing disasters and climate change, to name but two subjects. The outcomes will specify the commitments required to enhance openness and inclusion in providing weather and climate services that better serve communities around the world, especially women, as both weather and climate vulnerability and adaptive capacity often differ by gender.